Drive brand awareness through marketing partnerships
- Dec 9, 2017
- 2 min read
Updated: Apr 12
It is very common that community relations are associated with corporate social responsibility, philanthropic efforts, and donations. However, there is an additional mechanism that complements these efforts, such as sponsorships. Let's start by defining sponsorship as a partnership in which two parties (sponsor and applicant) benefit. While a donation only benefits the party requesting support, the donor does not receive benefits in return for its investment. The use of granting sponsorships to establish relationships with the community may involve a little more effort because it represents a process of negotiating benefits for both parties.
Why make some efforts? Because the benefits of a sponsorship help strengthen the identity of the brand and promote interaction with the public in different ways. There are also several additional benefits indirectly obtained by strategically choosing sponsorships.
1. Big impactTaking into consideration that within a community there are different needs and the sponsorship budget to support them all can easily reduce the value of each supported cause, it will help the corporation to establish a specific cause with which the brand is interested in associating. Choosing one long-term cause makes it more likely to create big changes in the community over the next three to ten years.
2. Serve as a filterAnother indirect benefit of choosing strategic sponsorships is that it serves as a filter for requests that are not linked to the brand’s identity, corporate culture, and reputation. To the extent that all corporate community relations efforts are identified with specific causes, applicants will recognize which brands or corporations work best for their properties and add value to the partnership.
3. EfficiencyLikewise, sponsoring special events turns out to be efficient for corporations with small communication departments that have limited resources and are focused on daily efforts. The results of this partnership will most likely bring relief for the company employees and an increase in the return on investment (ROI), since the owner of the sponsored property is responsible for producing the event and the corporation’s influence on the production of it will depend on the sponsorship level or the negotiated benefits.
4. Brand projectionMost properties have advertising opportunities where they place the sponsors' logos on their digital media outlets and other outlets. This helps the corporation or the brand to sublimely communicate to the public the causes with which they are committed. Meanwhile, sponsoring events offers an opportunity for the corporations to interact with their market by inserting themselves into the property's activities and offering an experience to their clients.
By strategically choosing sponsorships, the negotiation process is more focused and the benefits are more linked to the brand's or corporation's objectives. Once the partnership is a done deal, it's recommended to invest significant time in planning, production, and monitoring results. The whole process will help evaluate sponsoring the property further on and the magnitude of the investment.
About the author: Cristina Martínez is experienced in corporate social responsibility management, who specializes in partnership negotiations and communications strategies. To contact Cristina write to theprvenue@gmail.com
